Well Cricketeers, the dow closed the week as it started it DOWN! DAGNABIT! There is just no end to the bad economic news. This from reuters:

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Housing market and consumers on the ropes

By Burton Frierson Burton Frierson
Fri Oct 17, 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Consumer confidence suffered its steepest monthly drop on record in October and construction starts on new homes fell to a 17-1/2 year low the previous month, as the financial crisis sent shock waves through the economy.

The fall in consumer confidence came as a sharp deterioration in credit markets punished stocks and wiped out large chunks of savings held in retirement accounts. The sentiment drop erased a recovery in previous months that was inspired by a retreat in oil prices that had been at record highs.

“Confidence is collapsing so that’s not good even as you have gas prices falling,” said Doug Smith, chief economist for the Americas at Standard Chartered in New York. “People are seeing what’s happening to their 401ks, stocks and home prices. It’s just awful.”

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said on Friday its index of confidence plummeted to 57.5 in October from 70.3 in September.

Earlier, the Commerce Department said overall starts on new homes fell 6.3 percent to their slowest pace since January 1991, and well below expectations of Wall Street economists.

Both releases showed the spiraling credit crisis was pounding an already weak economy.

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SONOFABUSH! There can be no end to this disaster so long as the ethically challenged feckless appaRATchiks of the two parties of the apocalypse continue to bail out the corpoRATe criminals. Investor and consumer confidence is shaken because no one believes the Pork barrel lemon socialist corpoRATe welfare bailout will fix the underlying problem!

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A truly amazing post

Nestled among the posts dedicated to the day to day normal life of a young woman that calls herself "Sassybelle" is a totally awesome work of deep empathy and understanding:
I hope you will click here to read it!